Facebook Reveals Its Secret Rules For Censoring Posts

In its new-found spirit of transparency, Facebook is publishing its internal Community Guidelines and is introducing an appeals process for users who believe their content has been taken down unfairly.

The company has traditionally kept secret the guidelines it uses to decide what content should be allowed - concerned, one assumes, that publishing them would allow people to game the system. Now, though, it's going public.

"We decided to publish these internal guidelines for two reasons. First, the guidelines will help people understand where we draw the line on nuanced issues," says VP of global product management Monika Bickert.

"Second, providing these details makes it easier for everyone, including experts in different fields, to give us feedback so that we can improve the guidelines – and the decisions we make – over time."

The guidelines are much more detailed than the community standards that have in the past been available to users. This is particularly informative when it comes to harassment and bullying. You can't, for example, post content that 'claims that a victim of a violent tragedy is lying about being a victim' or 'content about another private individual that reflects... degrading physical descriptions about or ranking individuals on physical appearance or personality'.

And along with publishing the guidelines, Facebook is also introducing an appeals process for those who believe they've been misjudged.

The company has come in for a fair amount of criticism over the years for taking down perfectly innocuous content - everything from photos of classical statues to the famous picture of a napalmed child in Vietnam.

Now, users whose content has been taken down will be notified and given the chance to ask for a review; reviews will normally be carried out within 24 hours.

The policy will initially apply only to nudity or sexual activity, hate speech and graphic violence, says Bickert.

But, she adds, "We are working to extend this process further, by supporting more violation types, giving people the opportunity to provide more context that could help us make the right decision, and making appeals available not just for content that was taken down, but also for content that was reported and left up."

Only two weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg appeared somewhat flummoxed when asked by Congress to justify the takedown of two African-American conservative bloggers. The new publication is timely - and will at least give him a crib sheet to read from next time.